Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

Making one PG-13 slasher film that’s actually enjoyable to watch is impressive enough. Making two of them would probably require divine intervention. So it’s surely the right decision that, in crafting a follow-up to 2017’s startlingly fun and effective Happy Death Day, returning writer-director Christopher Landon would elect to use the slasher form more as […]

Hammer Film Productions made its reputation on a series of violent (by the standards of the time) horror movies set in the latter half of the 19th Century. And while only a handful of them took place anywhere in the British Isles, they were all suffused with a certain distinctive Englishness. That would all make […]

There is probably no major franchise with a more gnarled line of continuity than the Halloween slasher movies, which despite the apparent cleanliness of their numbered progression, have no fewer than four different, irreconcilable universes, and that’s without bringing in Rob Zombie’s standalone remakes in the 2000s to muck it up. 1978’s Halloween begat one […]

Hell Fest isn’t much as a movie, but there’s one thing I like about it: it’s a good excuse to do some theorising about horror cinema. You know, that thing we all like to do in our spare time. I’ll get to the specifics of what I have in mind in a little bit, but […]

The Strangers! Now that was a real corker of a horror-thriller, a film that I would have happily predicted at the time – the time was 2008 – was going to establish itself as a small classic of the genre. This does not seem to have happened, and yet ten years later, the film did […]

There was a time once, and not so very long ago either, when a chainsaw-wielding psychopath in a Madea film would have been Madea herself, as was so memorably, dispiritingly seen in the character’s very first big-screen appearance, 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman. But times change, and with Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, […]

On paper, almost nothing is actually good about Happy Death Day. And yet, almost certainly, it gave me more pleasure to watch it than any other 2017 horror movie. On such paradoxes is a love of art founded. Although I’m being a bit dismissive. While most everything about Happy Death Day can be accurately predicted […]

There’s absolutely no reason to expect much of The Ice Cream Truck, and maybe it’s for that reason that I found it to be such a fetching affair. In at least two very noticeable respects, the film flagrantly boasts the limitations of its teeny-weeny budget: the dialogue, particularly in outdoor scenes, has the unmissable, overly […]

29 years ago, when Child’s Play was young, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed if you suggested that the movie would even be remembered in a decade, let alone three; and I would laughed all the harder if you suggested that there it was going to birth the strongest movie franchise of all […]

There aren’t too many slasher films as scattered as Curtains. When I put it that way, it sounds like it’s not even a compliment. And I suppose it probably isn’t a compliment, at that, given how much the movie at the end feels like a collection of scene ideas tacked to a board over the […]

From among the Video Nasties There will never come a time when the career of director Tobe Hooper isn’t sad: the fella makes one timeless all-American cinematic masterpiece in the form of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and then never comes within leagues of the same quality ever again. To be frank, most of his post-TCM […]

A summer at Antagony & Ecstasy without ANY 1980s horror movies is no summer at all. So every weekend in July, I’m looking at a grab-bag of some of the more notable titles released in and around the great slasher boom of 1980-1984. I’m not sure that Motel Hell “works”, but just on sheer chutzpah, […]

Alternate Ending was formed when three friends realized they all shared a passion for movies. Our goal is to save you time and money by sharing our thoughts and recommendations on which movies to race to theaters for, which to watch at home and those to actively avoid.
What makes Alternate Ending different from other film sites and podcasts? Well, we’re not 5 dudes in a room talking about our passion for Fight Club and Braveheart. We’re two dudes, and a lady, of which our tastes are quite varied. Rob, the film-school dropout, has seen an absurd amount of movies, and if we’re being honest, rounds out our Fight Club fan-base. Tim Brayton, our seasoned film critic, shares a more critical view of film, an appreciation for vintage cinema and perhaps limited-release movies that we might otherwise miss. Carrie, our casual movie-goer, reminds us all that cinema is in fact supposed to be fun and entertaining and that sometimes, just sometimes, happy endings are good.
Too many film sites cater to the same kind of audience, with one overwhelming voice in the writing, but what we treasure at Alternate Ending is diversity: diversity of opinion, diversity in belief about what film should do and how it should do it. We want to celebrate our different opinions, and celebrate yours as well.
This isn't a site for people who just want to talk about the latest hot new movies in theaters right this minute. This is a place for people who can't get to the theater until the third week a film is out; a place for people who just want to find something great to stream online after the kids have gone to sleep, a place for people whose favorite pastime is to grab a bunch of classic films on DVD from the library and watch them all weekend. It's a place that believes that every great movie is a wonderful new treasure, whether you see it the night of its premiere or fifty years later. It's a site about discovering good movies... one bad movie at a time.
Join us for our weekly review of movies worth seeing, worth avoiding and our Top 5 lists – and don’t forget to play along at www.alternateending.com.

John Wick Parabellum stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski and his team have achieved one of the rarest and most impressive feats in Hollywood filmmaking: they've made a trilogy in which (for now)every film has improved upon it's predecessor

There might not be any time quite in a human lifespan quite as beloved to filmmakers as high school: that miraculous cauldron of humiliation and horniness, when every emotion is ramped up to 110%. To celebrate the release of Booksmart, we're looking at our Top 5 High School Movies. In Worth Mentioni...